“He knew everything there was to know about literature, except how to enjoy it” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

As a great lexicographer once confided to me: "We can't change things in the dictionary if you don't change them first."

“If your writing doesn't keep you up at night, it won't keep anyone else up either” ― James M. Cain

"Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity." Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet.

"Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity." Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet.

Neil Young on one of his early influences: "Marty Robbins, 'Don't Worry,' with the first fuzztone guitar... see, that's country music - fuckin' feedback came from country. Who woulda ever thought. But there it was." www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgZA...

"If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive." Barry Lopez

Bill Evans time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv2G...

"If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive." Barry Lopez

And of course they didn't. It's mayhem here. I am shutting it down. The lights have been doused and the netting dropped from the ceiling. If they got paid, I'd have had to dock their wages. I'll be disbanding the Entertainments Committee first thing in the morning.

couldn't agree more

The ILT's Saturday night staff soiree is just getting underway. I do hope they behave themselves this time. #chinchin

When you are rewriting your novel and realise you used exasperate instead of exacerbate.

I remember, in my gloomy teenage years, listening to the radio late at night under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep and hearing The Gypsy's Wife (never having heard Leonard Cohen before) and was stunned. Genuinely stunned. Besotted thereafter. Spurred to write.

Leonard Cohen, who died nine years ago today, recites W.B.Yeats at Lissadell House, Sligo, July 31st, 2010. youtu.be/n5vYpWCbHsE?...

He came to read and talk about writing at his old school in Cavan where I was a student. I was about 15 and miserable - writing and keeping it to myself. But when he talked, I was mesmerised and convinced he was speaking to me alone. There was light at the end of tunnel.

He came to read and talk about writing at his old school in Cavan where I was a student. I was about 15 and miserable - writing and keeping it to myself. But when he talked, I was mesmerised and convinced he was speaking to me alone. There was light at the end of tunnel.

“Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.” ― Edna O'Brien

"There is a marvellous peace in not publishing...Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure...I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work." J. D. Salinger

"There is a marvellous peace in not publishing...Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure...I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work." J. D. Salinger

Elvis from his Sun days singing Harbour Lights - lyrics by Northern Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy (who grew up in Portstewart where he saw a few harbour lights for sure) with music by Hugh Williams (the pseudonym of exiled Austrian composer Will Grosz). www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xif6...

#Halloween Don't go into that barn, yeah I said don't go into that barn, yeah Black cellophane sky at midnight A big blue moon with three gold rings I called Champion to the window I pointed up above the trees That's when I heard my name in a scream Coming from the woods youtu.be/qRSBmalHDV0?...

Fargo 5. Yup.

“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.” ― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

Hi, It's Me, Wikipedia, and I Am Ready for Your Apology "In 2004, you saw some college guy using me and thought, 'What a lazy cheater.' Now you’d think, 'At least he’s not asking Gemini.' In a few years, you’ll say, 'Wow, look, a human being who can read.'" www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hi-...

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.” Flannery O'Connor

“Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.” ― Raymond Chandler

Smiling to myself with a stray memory that just came back to me: I walked out into the hall about 25 years ago when my son was barely five, and he was staring up at the light switch on the wall. - What's up? - I was just thinking that the house must be wired in parallel not series.

“Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.” ― Raymond Chandler

It's a great pleasure to welcome Anne Enright back to the shop this evening. She's in conversation with Clair Wills about ATTENTION, her new collection of essays, which is published on Thursday Signed copies are available to order here: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/attent...

“If colons and semicolons give themselves airs and graces, at least they also confer airs and graces that the language would be lost without.” Lynne Truss

Also: Team Themself.

As a copy editor I'm supposed to reflect and enhance usage rather than shove it down people's windpipes, but since I didn't coin "factito"—the great Michael Chabon did, as a means to avert the ongoing misuse of "factoid"—I can certainly endorse it, and use it, and do.

"I kept thinking that the imitators never knew and don’t know how miserable these men were. They think they were having marvelous times — joy, joy, joy — and they weren’t at all." ~ Carolyn Cassady, to novelist Gina Berriault in 1972 of the Beat Generation writers

Sharon Shannon and Alan O'Connor looking quite ethereal.

Liam Ó'Maonlaí giving it (Copperhead Road) welly on the bodhrán.

Well, that's me recharged.

Waiting for Steve. And everyone else.

"Voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth." Sam Cooke

“Don't use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.” ― Jack Kerouac

Technically, this is a book of spells.

Charlie Haughey put his head around the door, pointed at Bertie Ahern and declared: "He's the man. He's the best, the most skilful, the most devious, and the most cunning of them all." Bertie Ahern looked up, sighed and said quietly: "That's all I need." www.thejournal.ie/bertie-ahern...

“Don't use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.” ― Jack Kerouac

"Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity." - Albert Camus

"Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity." - Albert Camus

“My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke that caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone.” ― Leonard Cohen

I remember going to San Francisco for the first time during my MFA days in Spokane back in the early 90s. Stayed in very cheap hotel in Chinatown (with a dirty magazine in the bedside drawer instead of a Gideon bible) just so I could visit City Lights on a daily basis. Those were good times.